The present invention is directed generally to services for wireless technology, and more particularly, to traditional numeric-only paging service for wireless digital telephone technology.
With the advent of wireless digital telephones, new features have become available for wireless cellular telephone users. One of the features developed is short message service (SMS); which is commonly available from carriers that provide digital wireless service. With this technology, digital wireless carriers can provide an additional means of communication for their subscribers, typically at no additional charge. In particular, digital wireless carriers permit their subscribers to send and receive short text messages (up to one hundred sixty alphanumeric characters) to and from a variety of sources, including paging terminals and even the Internet. Digital wireless telephones have the ability to send and receive such messages. It will be appreciated, however, that such messages are not derived from the dual-tone, multi-frequency (DTMF) signals generated by pressing respective ones of the keys on a conventional telephone keypad. Rather, short text message signals are alphanumeric in nature and are generated by keyboards of computer terminals and similar devices. When sending an SMS message via a telephone, the telephone keypad is used as a keyboard to generate the desired alphanumeric message.
In light of the foregoing, it will be understood that alphanumeric and SMS paging technologies have been implemented for use with digital wireless telephone technology. Traditional alphanumeric pagers have been replaced by digital telephones, which have the capability to function both as a telephone and as a paging receiver able to send and receive alphanumeric and/or SMS pages. As a result, only one devicexe2x80x94the digital telephonexe2x80x94is needed. Prior to the integration of this technology, a cellular telephone was needed for telephone communication and a pager was needed for alphanumeric text messaging.
One drawback of the digital wireless/SMS integrated technology is that it has not met the need to implement traditional, numeric-only paging service with wireless telephone service. As will be appreciated by those skilled in the art, traditional, numeric-only paging service uses the DTMF signals generated by pressing respective ones of the keys on a conventional telephone keypad to derive a numeric-only page, which identifies a callback telephone number when received by a paging receiver. Because this technology has not been developed, digital wireless subscribers could not be paged by telephones.
Another drawback of wireless telephone technology is that there has never been a paging technology implemented therewith permitting the wireless telephone subscriber to maintain the privacy of his/her wireless telephone number. As will be appreciated, the need to maintain the privacy of a wireless telephone subscriber""s wireless telephone number to minimize costs for use of the telephone is of prime concern. Use of wireless telephones is expensive, and it is believed that costs associated therewith will continue to grow as demand for such use increases over the next few decades. By failing to maintain the privacy of a wireless telephone subscriber""s wireless telephone number, the subscriber can be subjected to unnecessary use, which translates into unnecessary, undesirable costs.
In light of the foregoing, it is desirable to implement traditional, numeric-only paging technology with wireless telephone technology.
It is further desirable to implement traditional, numeric-only paging technology with digital wireless telephone technology.
It is still further desirable to develop an implementation of traditional, numeric-only paging technology for use with wireless telephone technology that maintains the privacy of a wireless telephone subscriber""s wireless telephone number.
These and other objects are met by various aspects and forms of the present invention. These and other objects will become apparent from the following description. It will be understood, however, that an apparatus or system could still appropriate the claimed invention without accomplishing each and every one of these objects, including those gleaned from the following description. The appended claims, not the objects, define the subject matter of the invention. Any and all objects are derived from the preferred forms of the invention, not the invention in general.
The present invention is directed to a system for providing numeric-only paging service to wireless telephone service. The system includes a dual-tone, multi-frequency-to-short message service converter unit configured to receive dual-tone, multi-frequency signals and convert the signals into a short message service text message. The system also includes a short message service server coupled in communication with the converter unit. The short message service server is adapted to receive the short message service text message and transmit a page to a mobile telephone switching office for ultimate transmission of the short message service text message to a wireless telephone. In a preferred embodiment, the DTMF-to-SMS converter unit is a voice mail system.
The present invention is also directed to a method of providing numeric-only paging service for wireless telephone service. The method includes the step of receiving a plurality of dual-tone, multi-frequency signals from a telephone. It also includes the step of converting the plurality of dual-tone, multi-frequency signals into a short message service text message. The method further includes the step of transmitting the short message service text message to a short message service server. It still further includes the step of transmitting a page to a mobile telephone switching office to initiate ultimate transmission of the short message service text message to a wireless telephone, in response to receipt of the short message service text message by the short message service server.
The method of the present invention is also directed to the step of assigning an auxiliary telephone number to a wireless telephone. The auxiliary telephone number is distinct from a main telephone number assigned to said wireless telephone which activates calls for the wireless telephone. The method further includes the step of receiving a telephone call from a telephone in response to dialing of the auxiliary telephone number. It still further includes the step of receiving a plurality of dual-tone, multi-frequency signals from the telephone. Still yet further, the method includes the step of converting the plurality of dual-tone, multi-frequency signals into a short message service text message. Moreover, it includes the step of transmitting the short message service text message to a short message service server. Additionally, it includes the step of transmitting a page to a mobile telephone switching office to initiate ultimate transmission of the short message service text message to the wireless telephone in response to receipt of the short message service text message by the short message service server.